


All Alright (old version)

by Phae98



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Alternate Universe - Mary Doesn't Exist, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Boys In Love, Captain John Watson, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I've written the story in italian first, John "Three Continents" Watson, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, No Mary, Non-Consensual, Not My Fault, POV Sherlock Holmes, PTSD Sherlock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sex, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson in Love, Sherlock in Love, Sherlock is a flower petal, Sherlock-centric, Translation in Italian, Virgin Sherlock, could be some mistakes, give me some advice, john is in love with sherlock, sorry for that, than translated in english
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phae98/pseuds/Phae98
Summary: THIS STORY HAS BEEN RECENTLY REVISED, YOU CAN FIND THE NEW AND ULTIMATE VERSIONE HERE:https://archiveofourown.org/works/13995069/chapters/32225739Sherlock has always loved the silence, it has always preserved him from himself, it has been a trusted comrade and a discrete advisor. A nocturn lover in not-so-gentle nights. A lover easy to addomesticate, or to tame. Easy to understand and to handle.Sherlock has always loved it, but not this time.This time the silence is just sorrow, it's just purplish bruises on his snowy and naked skin, exposed, terribly available.   Italian translation available





	1. Part one: Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This story has been revised and you can find the new and ultimate version here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13995069/chapters/32225739
> 
> I am deeply thankful to all those who left kudos and commented this story in the last two years, it meant the world to me!

  
_It may be this time tomorrow_  
or maybe today  
It is not right  
Now it's better  
Now we'll know  
Now he'll know what I have done  
I'm sitting with you  
Sitting in silence  
Listening to birds  
It feels like home

**All Alright, Sigur Ros** **  
**  


 

# Ashes

### Part one 

  
Sherlock feels himself choking. All is dark, and silence all around him, silence who wraps his limbs out straight on the cold floor, silence in his hands that aren't playing any note anymore, but are stratching themselves under the rough rope. They doesn't play, no more.  
There's silence everywhere, even inside of him. Even between his thoughts.  
Sherlock has always loved the silence, it has always preserved him from himself, it has been a trusted comrade and a discrete advisor. A nocturn lover in not-so-gentle nights. A lover easy to addomesticate, or to tame. Easy to understand and to handle.  
Sherlock has always loved it, but not this time. This time the silence is just sorrow, it's just purplish bruises on his snowy and naked skin, exposed, terribly available.  
  
It was a case, he remembers that. One of many. One of the easy ones. He went alone, of course he went alone. He shouldn't have bothered John for nothing less than a seven-point case. At least.  
And he's fallen, like an amateur. After two years passed by destroying the world's biggest criminal network, he has fallen like any one. Like a nothing boat.  
They haven't killed him, unless he's actually already dead and in a sort of limbo, but Sherlock is not so inclined to consider this. They've spoken about a ransom, after having beating him so hard he's almost passed away. Almost, because he has keeped the conscience necessary in order to listen. Ransom could mean just two thinks, both correct: ransom means keeping him alive, at least for a while, and especially ransom means Mycroft. And, for consequence, it means John.  
Sherlock has never been one for hope, it isn't rational, it doesn't help to think, it gets it wrong. It isn't countable, or quantificable. But this time hope takes form like never before in his entire life, and it has John's blue eyes, his blonde hair, his tiny lips.  
  


  
_He will tell him, one day._  
_But not today._  


  
He's waken by sweaty hands running on his body, he closes his eyes and says nothing. He thinks about John, and says nothing.  
He remains silent when the last piece of cloth tears and leaves his skin exposed, he remains silent when someone or something pushes him to the ground, hardly, his face pressed against the filthy floor, an hot fluid who wets his dark curls and he really doesn't want to know what it is.  
He remains silent because he needs to preserve the energies, he remains silent because the only thing he can do now is just take refuge in his mind, in a remote and protected room, secure, in his mind palace, where there's just the 221b of Baker Street and the hands are John's, the skin is John's, and so his smell and his eyes, and the cold floor is just the carpet of their living room and the pain he feels is caused by a fall from a roof. Nothing else, just John. Just what matters. The only thing who matters.  
Always, as always.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


  
He doesn't remain silent now. He just screams when he feels someone grabbing his legs and dragging him back. He doesn't see, eyes are closed and black, crushed by the weight of the beating, but even if they weren't he will close them anyway.  
He screams because they can take everything away from him, everything but that, everything but John. And the man who's worming his way between his legs is not John, and it's anger that Sherlock feels inside of him, because it could be just John, no one else, never. He has been waiting thirty-five years for that, he can't permit that they take it away from him. Taking away what is destiny from always to John and to John only, the only one Sherlock has ever desired to touch, the only one whose body Sherlock hasn't been afraid of. The only one he has ever desired to give himself to because it would have been so bloody right, so bloody what it should be.  
But what it should be doesn't happen. It happens something else, and it isn't right. It's anything but right. It's just pain and everything wrong there's in the world. Cries, Sherlock, cries because he can scream no more, a hand closing his mouth and it isn't John's. It's never John's.  
He cries because he hasn't had the time or the opportunity to tell him.  
To asking him to take him, to see his blue eyes raising for the surprise and -Sherlock hopes- because of the joy. He hasn't had the time. And he won't have anymore.  
Because how could he possibly telling him now, now that this man is pushing himself hardly inside of him, his strong hands on his thighs, forcing him to broaden them, moanings pouring on his back and an hollow ache in the moment when he enters him and violate him , taking something that weren't supposed to belong to him but he does, he opens him with violence, pushing hardly, with arrogance, careless of his gasps, of his moanings, of is pain. How could he? He can't, he won't do it. If he ever get out of there.  
Sherlock stops crying when he feels something dripping between his thighs and the man retracting. Maybe it's sperm, maybe it's blood, maybe both things and he really doesn't want to know. He just wants him to stop, he just wants that no one else takes the place of the man that is gone away, that they leaves him sleeping, leaves him dying, choking.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


  
Obviously they don't let him. Someone goes and sees him each pair of hours, Sherlock wakes up and giving into who arrives, trying to lasting it as little as possible, sometimes he even tries not to stop sleeping. He sleeps, he wakes up, than he goes back to sleep. It goes like this for days on end, and he loses himself-perception, his body's, of what it happens to him.  
John's eyes begin to bleed in his mind and he tries desperatly to prevent it, to get hold of them, to remember them. But it's like trying to retaining water on fingers, and John flows away. World's each color bleeds and flows away. It remains darkness, and pain.  
It remains his voice, in that remote corner of his mind palace in which he's still able to get into.  
There are days and days.  
The good ones it hurts a bit less, and Sherlock just sleeps. The bad ones, he can't hold tears and he evocates his voice. _“Amazing”_ , John always says. _“Amazing.”_  
Sherlock likes his voice, he's almost able to forget where he's, to feel a bit at home.  
  
“ _There were times that I didn’t even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human…. human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so… there. I was so alone and I owe you so much. Please, there’s just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t be… dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it, stop this.”_  
  
Sherlock remembers that thay very well. It often thinks about it, when he's not so tired he still can. He likes how his name has posed on John's lips, with all his pain.  
Everything of human it rests, Sherlock has confined it in these words guarded in his mind. The only things of himself he doesn't want to let go.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


  
When later they come, they are crueler than usual. It must have received some Mycroft's notice. This one, more probably, is not giving in to the ransom. Sherlock smiles for a moment: he's taking time, he's searching for him. He's out there, somewhere. With John. John who's searching for him. John who's not leaving him.  
There's still hope. There's still a world out there, maybe.  
It's for this reason, for this feeble sunshine that achieves him, that Sherlock says no: he tryies not to get caught, he closes his legs how hard he can, and talks for the first time in weeks.  
“No.”  
It's a strong negation, despite his ruspy voice because of the inactivity. He's just able to get them angry more and more. One takes his hair, stretching it so hard he screams, foreign fingers filling his mouth.  
  
“ _But let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human... human being I've ever known.”_  
  
John's voice seems to be the only thing he can hold on to while they push him to the ground. They must have broken him some rips, it hurts just the tought of breathing.  
  
“ _One more miracle, Sherlock, for me.”_  
  
The man who takes him is so hard he feels himself torn , like they wants to break him, destroy him. Totally annihilate him, to take off the last piece of dignity he still has.  
  
“ _Sherlock.”_  
  
And they do it, in the ends. Somewhere inside of him Sherlock succeeds to find enough force and enough breath to talk again. He prays them. “Stop it.” He prays them again. “Please.” Each syllab a rattling. When they let him in the ground, he's still able to think that he can't do this to John. He can't die, not again, not another time. Not for real.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


  
When he wakes up, someone is helping him to drink. Sherlock tries to set fire to the unknown face in front of him. He's a boy, but Sherlock's reflexes are so slow he couldn't say anything else.  
He feels a mattress under his body. Filthy, but still better than the floor. The room is the usual one, such as the darkness, such as the silence.  
“Who are you?”  
“One of them.”  
“Why...” Sherlock coughts, interrupting his own words.  
“...am I not doing something bad to you? I don't agree with the things they do, not with all of them.”  
Sherlock nodds, back to the silence again. He doesn't want to take a breath and think about something useless, about something that is not going to change anything. Not the state of things, not his sorrow, not the hole in his chest, not his shortcomings.  
The boy stands up, it looks young, it must be very young. He wonders what he does there, he wonders why he's asking himself this. Irrilevant, after all.  
He stops at the door, Sherlock feels it by the sound of his steps but he doesn't have the force to watch.  
“Sherlock?” Is this his name? Is this his name for real?  
“They are searching for you, they're close. I have seen them.”  
Sherlock raises his eyes for a second, he's not sure about what he has listened, he's not sure about what is true or not.  
He closes his eyes, there's time later to think about it.  
  
When they come back it's evening -or better, Sherlock presumes it's evening-, he's not afraid. He doesn't care, he doesn't care anymore. He has succeeded to find in his mind the door behind it he had hidden John's eyes, not to lose them, not to forget them. To preserve them how it's done with all the beautiful things. With all the important and wonderful things.  
He doesn't hear their laughter of ridicule, he barely feels the pain or even just what's around him, not the balde of the knife engraving his skin, there on the breastbone, not the blood flowing, he feels just the important things. John's voice, for example.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


  
The boy come back to see how he's going. Sherlock has stopped wondering why.  
“Get me out of here” just says. He takes his wrist, he hold it strongly. It's not a request.  
The other one stays silent. Shakes a bit, wondering if he's not gone too over trying to help that man reduced to the shadow of himself, to the shadow of what he was one time.  
“I have to get out from here. I have to reach him. I can't die again, do you understand?”  
“Die... again?”  
Sherlock nodds, leaving his wrist. Trying to get his strenghts back, at least a bit.  
The boy finally nodds. “Later, you rest now” says. And Sherlock does. He doesn't want to let himself to hope, but he feels more heat while he's trying to keep the pain down. He's going to have all the time to feel it later. Now he needs to hide it in a corner of his mind.  
Victor, who whispers his name just before leaving him, so he's named, really does it. He gets him out for real. It's night, darkness everywhere, it looks like countryside. Sherlock is barefoot -Victor has given him something to wear, but he couldn't do more-, he feels the grass tickling the palm of his feet and he almost cryies. But he can't, not yet. There's going to be time, later.  
He sees some lights into the distance, through the trees. He isn't sure about what he sees, actually, but he wants to believe in it.  
“Here they are. I told you they were close.”  
Sherlock nodds, moving some steps, he wobbles.  
“You must go now, before the others come back. Time is over, time is over!”  
Therefore Sherlock begins to run, he runs towards these lights, he runs like never before, and he knows that it's just adrenalyn, he's too weak to substein that run for real. He has three minuts, maybe four. No more.  
He doesn't turn to Victor, je knows that probably he is going to die because of him. They will kill him.  
He will think about it later, when he will let himself to have to deal with the guilt, now he just runs.  
He feels his legs becoming heavy, beginning to give up, blood flowing under his feets. He must have cut himself, but it doens't matter.  
“John!” Screams, hoping they will hear him. He sees the lights moving, coming closerer. The noise of an elicopter, somewhere.  
He falls, tripping, he can't rise above. He drags himself on, breathless, dirt and grass on his face, feeling nothing about himself. But time is over. And he can't take it anymore.  
“John...” whispers.  
And than he sees him, and it must be a dream or something similar, but maybe it's just real: those blue eyes. His blue eyes.  
It feels himself grabbed and lifted, he's so light it shouldn't be difficult. It feels other men around him, getting closer -to help, he presumes in a barely moment of ractionality, but it doesn't want to. He doesn't want to let them touching him.  
“No” growls John. John understands, John always understands, he pulls him at his pocket and Sherlock holds on to him without having any intenction of letting him, fingers tight to the cloth of his jacket.  
“John, I have to tell you...”  
“Sssh, there's time, Sherlock. Rest.”  
And the world becomes dark. And this time, it is alright.

  
__  
He will tell him, one day.  
_But not today._  


 

 

 

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

_Find my Facebook page **[RIGHT HERE|](https://www.facebook.com/phaewriter/)**_


	2. Part two: Flames

# Flames

### Part two

 

“I won't leave him in an hospital, Mycroft, I haven't even thought about that. We're going to stay here, at Baker Street.”  
“You're not capable of it, John.”

“And are you?” John's voice is hard, Sherlock feels it even before hearing it, even before seeing him. And than he sees him.

He's if in front of the window, arms folded, the light wrapping the edges and a tired face. Terribly tired.

“John...” calls, with a flebile voice. It all hurts and his senses are muffled, but when John sees him and crosses his look, he thinks he could drown in those eyes and die a million of times again, it doesn't matter the pain he feels in his body.

 

_He will tell him, one day._

_But not today._

 

Sherlock sleeps a lot, barely talks, he listens to John who never let him alone. They're permanently came back to Baker Street, now, John repeats him every time he felt lost. “We're home, it's alright, you're safe.” The very first days there's been a nurse to stitche him, Sherlock has noticed distinctly, and he was raised. He doesn't want John looking at him, not before he himself could see his own body, see the damages without trusting only his own sorrow.

Mycroft told him he's going to be fine soon, that the injuries are not so relevant, and he's just deadly tired, and Sherlock trustes him. For this kind of things, he trustes him.

He knows his brother has understood what is happened. More than John, by the way, and he knows he's not going to tell him. Sherlock is grateful.

 

_He will tell him, one day._

_But not today._

 

“Stay” Sherlock asks one evening. He feels cold, and he's so tired, even if he's just got up. He has opened his eyes and panick has took him, breathing speeding up, cold sweat on his forehead. He has called John. “I've all the symptoms of a panick attack” he says, and it's so incredibly like Sherlock saying such a thing, with the usual ractionality, that John can't do nothing but smile and breath with him.

“Stay”, he asks again. “I'm cold”, says then, as a sort of excuse, as if he needed an excuse to ask John to stay with him. And actually it's what he needs, because he is anywhere near to tell him. Not yet, not yet.

And John stays. He undresses, staying in pants and t-shirt and sourround him by his arms under the sheet, chest against back and Sherlock feels so good, feels a bit of heat. With John with him it would be the efforce of waiting the morning every day, for all the rest of his life.

 

_He will tell him, one day._

_But not today._

 

John wakes up with the usual morning erection in his pants, pulled against something incredibly soft. He squints his eyes, a bit confused, and he realised he's still hugged at Sherlock, who's pulled against him, constricted by his arms which hold him.

He laughs, realizing where he is. “I don't know if I've to be ashamed or not, sorry, Sherlock” says, mentioning the situation. His voice is warm and sincere. He's not ashamed, not for real, he just thinks this is never happened to him before. To have Sherlock in his bed, he means.

“Sherlock?” Calls again. Maybe he's sleeping, he thinks, maybe he's just so tired. Then he realizes something's wrong, he feels the body against him becoming incredibly still, his breathing increasing, his hands shaking. “Oh shit, Sherlock!”

John moves a bit, lifts him up, moves his curls off his forehead and sees terror in his eyes.

“What's the problem? I did something...”

Then, he understands. Stupid John, stupid, slow, trusting John.

He understands and his face looks horrified, Sherlock sees him and wanted to prevent it because somewhere inside of himself he knows that it's not his fault. But maybe also John wants to take him this way and so he really shoud allow him to do it because other way they're gonna hurt him more and more, and he will never come back home, come back to John, and he could die.

John watches shocked what's left of his erection, watches Sherlock and he feels himself dying. He moves from him and gets dressed, quickly, as fast as he can and he coweres on the ground, near the matress. He would like to take his hands but he doesn't venture. He would hold him but he can't, not now.

“Sherlock” calls. No answer.

“Sherlock.” Silence.

“I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to do anything you don't like. I'm sorry, really, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I haven't thought...” John is crying now, he's crying and maybe are his tears that can drag Sherlock back into reality, calming him down, his breath that slowly returns to normal.

“I will never hurt you. Never.”

They stay in silence for a bit, John sitting on the floor, Sherlock still under the blanket.

Sherlock thinks how much he've missed the man in front of him, who doesn't get closer yet because he's afraid of hurting him, again, but how possibly could John ever hurt him? John who is the only reason why he's still alive. Sherlock feels so stupid, he could haven't react like this for something so biological. He feels lost.

“It had to be you, John” says in the end, eyes down. He feels John's gaze get up on his face, but he can't watch him. “I wanted it to be you.”

“Sherlock.”

“I'm not broken, John.”

“No, you're not.”

_You are the best man and the most human being that I have ever known._

Then they shut up, and don't mention it again.

 

_He will tell him, one day._

_But not today._

 

The first time John convinces Sherlock to have a bath, it's also the first time Sherlock can see himself in the glass, and he sees the cuts on his chest. They are precise lines, red, gnarly scars on his pale skin.

John sees him. He reads the word _freak_ engraved with blood on his skn. He sees Sherlock's lips trembling, while he feels so much anger inside that he wants to scream. Against Mycroft, against that bloody monsters, against anyone have hurted him in his life because it's not fair.

Sherlock knows it, and John does too.

John approaches carefully, breathing slowly while he takes his skirt away and throw it on the floor. Sherlock looks at him without understanding, but he let him to take his hand. John takes it, shaking it a bit, and he drives it on his skin. He leaves it there, where the afghan bullet has teared his shoulder, where now there's a star-shaped scar that everyday remembers him about what it has been.

The same scar that allowed them to met, so maybe all the pain and the sorrow sometimes is worthwhile.

Sherlock moves slowly his fingertips on the raised skin, his breath almost imperceptible.

“It's better now.” John's voice is terribly close, and it isn't a question.

Sherlock nods.

 

_He will tell him, one day._

_But not today._

 

There are a lot of first times, after that one: the first time Sherlock gets up and makes tea for him and for John, and John smile so much because he has never done it, not even before, and Sherlock thinks that his smile is the best thing never happened to him. Almost like a nine-point case, you know; the first time Lestrade comes to visit them and Sherlock calls him _Greg_. Then probably he notices it, so he returns to Gavin, Gary, Gawain and they just look the other way, but that _Greg,_ everyone has heard it; the first time Mycroft appears in their living room and Sherlock gives him a half smile, John doesn't notice it because it's still to hungry, and the eldest Holmes doens't seem to pay attention to it.

 

“Can I touch you?”

The first time Sherlock asks him, John trembles. He's not sure about what Sherlock wants, he's not sure about anything.

“Can I, John?”

“You can do anything you want.”  
Sherlock takes his time, he always does. He likes John's chest, he likes linger for a long time with his fingers on his neck, on his scar, brush up his own too and feeling them close. He knows he's no ready, not for _everything_ , not for what they have taken away.

But there's John with him, there are his blue eyes, there's safety and after all Sherlock thinks he could be ready for anything.

John always touches him gently, he always looks him in his eyes.

“It's me, it's me, it's all alright.”

He has the extraordinary ability to bring him back when his thoughts kidnapp him and his mind brings him away, sometimes because of a similar touch, sometimes because of a sudden pain.

It takes some time before Sherlock understands that John's touch is nothing he has ever experienced, nothing similar, it's just _different._

John's lips on his skin: another thing Sherlock likes, even if he never understands entirely.

But, for one time, not understanding is fine.

He is on his back on the matress, John is always careful not to turn him, to mantein his gaze on him.

“Are you sure?” John frequently asks. Sherlock's answer is always yes.

“If you tell me to stop, I'll stop.”

“Don't stop, John.”

And John doesn't stop, his tongue caress slowly his mate's jaw, he barely touches his lips. He walkes down letter by letter his scar and tries to trasmit how much he is the best and the most extraordinary man he's ever know, he's ever had the chanche of meeting.

When John reaches his crotch, Sherlock feels himself loosing up. He feels a huge heat all around him while the doctor goes along all his lenght, wrapping the top, he tastes him, he kisses his thights and his flat stomach.

“You're...” tries to say, but then he stops. He can't hold a moan. He also thinks he doesn't need to do it anymore, he doesn't need to hold or hide anything, for any reason.

“It's alright.”

John repeats it, his hands are hot and skilled, Sherlock's breath is a flow, a sigh.

“Wait” he says all of a sudden. And John stops, John always stops if Sherlock asks kim.

And Sherlock moves, and he feels on his skin that John for a second is afraid of having done it wrong.

“It's alright”, and it's so unusual to hear it from him that they both smile a bit.

John lies down, Sherlock on him. He kisses the top of his nose, eyes on him. Ice who meet the ocean.

“I could drown in it” he whispers, and John isn't sure of what he said but then their excitements meet and the words on his lips just fly away.

“John...” Sherlock whispers, taking their pleasures and moving them together, holding them with his hand, with delicacy.

“Mmmmh...”

“John.”

“Sh-Sherlock.”

A thrust stronger than the others and John leans his head back, against the pillow.

“There's something I should say, John.”

“W-what...?”

A whisper, Sherlock moans, John moans louder, another gasp.

“It's always been you, John. It will always be you. You're anything of human I have, everything I've always had.”

The words get lost in an orgasm that hits both of them and ends with a scream, words get lost but sometimes they're not needed. John knows, always has, he keeps what Sherlock really is, hidden in his soul. It could not be otherwise.

They breathe together, the one on the other, as if they were one, caught in the storm of what they're feeling, of unspoken words and years spent without touching, of fear and sorrow.

Of being together, now, of being. Simply of being.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. And that's scary, Sherlock knows, John knows. *

It will take days, it will take a lot of words and gestures, it will take John's patiences, it will take Sherlock's ways. They won't let theirselves overwhelmed by static dynamics, by quirks of bulky characters, by their tired demons.

It will pass. It will change.

“We've got time, Sherlock. We've got all the time of the world.”

Time for another miracle.

 

 

_One day, maybe._

_Maybe now._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS!
> 
> *Quote from Oscar Wilde


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